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Date:         Sun, 26 Jul 2009 15:08:28 -0700
Reply-To:     Don Hanson <dhanson928@GMAIL.COM>
Sender:       Vanagon Mailing List <vanagon@gerry.vanagon.com>
From:         Don Hanson <dhanson928@GMAIL.COM>
Subject:      Wow! how bout this guy?
Content-Type: text/plain; charset=ISO-8859-1

This morning I headed up to Olympia, Wa. from Lyle-land in the Gorge for a bike race. It was so nice I decided on driving home the longer way, over White Pass (between Mt Ranieer and Mt Adams) through Yakima and back to home from the east. Quite a beautiful drive, first along the Cowlitz R. then the Tieton and Natchez rivers and finally back down the Columbia River Gorge. Well, it being Sunday and quite hot in the cities, everyone was out with all their toys (like me) and I got to see some pretty 'bone-headed' moves. One really stands out, since it almost caused me to die in a multi-car and truck crash...

As I headed west on Wa. Hwy 14, a two lane road with average (about 6'?) shoulders and a lot of semi-truck traffic (they avoid some Oregon DOT weigh stations by using the smaller road) I topped a blind rise and encountered, almost rear-ended, a big ole Buick. He was backing up, having missed a turnoff to the Maryhill Museum. Two older couples, out for a Sunday drive. I just barely got the van stopped before I smashed into his bumper...with lots of traffic whizzing by in the oncoming lane and a pretty deep ditch beside the road on 'our' side...I had nowhere to go and almost pushed my brake pedal through the floor getting stopped. So now, this guy just KEEPS coming back until he's almost against my bumper and then just sits there...He wants ME to back up so he can continue on backwards for another 3-4 hundred yards back to the turnoff to the Museum..it is a left turn, too. He makes no attempt to move over...He's just sitting right in the middle of the lane...looking at me like ...I dunno what. I am thinking..'well, this guy may now pull ahead and move as far to the right as possible and we MAY be able to squeeze two cars into our one lane as I get past him...but he'll probably just go ahead, like he should have in the first place, until he finds a safe place to do a U-turn or something... Then, over the rise behind come a semi...at about 65mph and HE locks em up....Smoke pouring off his tires, horn blasting...And I have no where to go because Buick Man is almost against my front bumper and the traffic is still whizzing by in the oncoming lane.... The semi got it stopped, too, just barely. So I finally yell out my window, but the BuickMan is not hearing...So I slip out of my drivers door and walk up sideways and knock on his window and ask him to get the ----out of the road...all the while cars whizzing past and now traffic is backing up behind the semi...at least you could see his truck over that rise... This fellow finally got it and went on up the road to the next place to turn around...Maybe he was expecting all of us to back up...What a bonehead.

It just reinforces what I learned in another crash I had while I was stopped by a flagger and got rear ended...Life is uncertain and even if you do everything just right..sh-- *still* happens that is not your doing...

Sorry for the semi-rant, but that was pretty unbelievable.. Don Hanson


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